Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

With Hotline Miami 2 everything that didn't work with the acclaimed predecessor takes center stage. The trial and error stealth fighting is expunged in favor of continuous, drawn-out, boring-ass gunfight, with enemies killing you from outside the screen even if you play (and it's impossible not to) with the L-Shift button constantly pressed. As a result the difficulty is completely artificial, and the game is a chore to play even despite the amazing art style and music.

No amout of aesthetic and style and blaring music can make up for abysmal targeting and generally unreliable and frustrating game play.

It's really not a lot of new things, but they have fine tuned some things. I also very much like the new variety in masks and characters. Mask choice now feels like a much more meaningful choice than it did in the first game. The story is also more interesting. Also the ending is trippy as hell and i like it that way.

Hotline Miami was great because of the complex and dynamic action gameplay based on improvised violence. The levels were claustrophobic and you needed surprise on your side. Things happened quickly, your reflexes had to be perfect, and if you wanted to get a high score (I've got top 100 global on every level of HM1) you had to perfect a strategy and then execute it (haha). There were some AI bugs, engine weaknesses (the pickup delay after executions was just unforgivable), and other minor complaints, but the core gameplay was truly excellent. Hotline Miami 2 takes most of that gameplay away and throws long linear hallways and endless large rooms of windows at you, along with more offscreen gun enemies 'shooting you before you can see them' than you can shake a stick at. Less melee weapons, less guns, less variation with FAR more emphasis on drawn out gun battles, and more bugs. Even the AI is worse, somehow. The maps are poorly designed, huge, with open spaces galore, and packed with massive amounts of enemies. The combo system has been revamped for the worse. The controls are sluggish, and the game feels far less smooth. Overall the gameplay is worse and more limited in every single area. Hotline Miami 2 is the end result of a developer unaware of what made his first game a success. People didn't buy it because of the marginally interesting story. They didn't buy it because the developer was a cult of personality. They bought it because it had highly refined core gameplay with violence, violence, and more violence. It's not even an action game at its best: it's a puzzle game. "How can I hit those two guys in that room and still combo the guy way in the back?" Which guy needs to die last, and how to kill him, to drag this 12x combo upstairs..." And so on. The pacing and gameplay of Hotline Miami 2 simply isn't rewarding or enjoyable at all. The game feels bad, and it plays bad. It's less game than HM1, and that's just pathetic. A huge, huge disappointment.

gg